Extempore is launching an updated version of the Content Management System aimed at simplifying the instructor experience. New features include: 1.- “View as student” button Going forward, you won’t need to create a student in order to view your oral assignments. Clicking on the “View Class as Student” link will create a new student user[…]
Here’s something you probably haven’t thought about – how much time does it REALLY take you to perform oral exams with your students? Here is some simple math that we can use to explain why one of our most common tasks, oral assessments, are so frustrating. Let’s use this simple formula: (SS*Mns+SS*Log)*Cl= PAIN What does[…]
As I’m planning a potentially-rich, definitely-logistically-challenging activity in my university-level Spanish classes, I’m realizing how much easier this could be with Extempore. Let me explain. I’m an assistant professor of Spanish language and linguistics at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. If you’re familiar with San Antonio, you know that this is a city[…]
The Extempore team’s mission to support language educators in the facilitation of instruction and assessment of oral skills aligns with ACTFL’s position on the role of technology in language learning. When I introduce Extempore at conferences and workshops, people often ask whether we are a stand-alone language software like Duolingo or Rosetta Stone. No, we[…]
As we do every year, we use the summer break to push updates to the platform. Some of these updates are major new features; but many others are small tweaks, performance and usability improvements that are reported to us during the year. That being said, we’re excited to announce the first one of the summer![...]
Posted on 2020-06-26 by Thomas Murr
Guest Post by Susana Perez-Castillejo, PhD, Assistant Professor of Spanish, University of St. Thomas. Beyond the Zoom breakout rooms for speaking activities and shared Google docs for collaborative writing practice, there are other tools we can leverage to make our synchronous class meetings a bit more interactive. These are ideas I have been learning these past few[...]
Posted on 2020-04-16 by Thomas Murr
Nowadays technological developments have affected our lives, how we communicate, how we learn and, of course, our way of teaching. Indeed, it is almost impossible to find a language class that does not use some technological support. Computer assisted language learning has changed the practice of teaching (Chapelle & Voss, 2016). Technology in Language[...]
Posted on 2020-02-10 by Thomas Murr
